“The director of market research for a major U.S.-based multi-national corporation (who asked that neither he nor the corporation be identified) explained the marketing principle to us in a 1974 interview. Asked what he thought of the trend toward women delaying marriage and living alone, he said:
‘There’s nothing in this that business would be opposed to. People living alone need the same things as people living in families. The difference is there’s no sharing. So really this trend is good because it means you sell more products. The only trend in living arrangements that I think business does not look favorably upon is this thing of communes, because here you have a number of people using the same products.’*

* He went on to explain that the way “business” dealt with the commune threat was by keeping them out of the media. Thus there are no situation comedies about life in a commune, no ads, etc.”
- from For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English

photo by Peter Simon via